Interview with Evgeny Chichvarkin

Evgeny Chichvarkin, CEO of the Euroset handset retailer, gave Russia Today his impressions of the Economic Forum in St Petersburg.

Russia Today: Euroset is one of the major handset retailers in Russia. It is also operating in 12 other countries, so you truly are an international company. Could you tell us a little bit about the extent of your business and how the Economic Forum in St Petersburg is likely to help your company?

Evgeny Chichvarkin: Our development in Russia is coming to its end now. We are planning to make every single store as efficient as possible. We want to offer the very best service there and we want to provide the newest mobile phones that people need the most. As for the CIS, we continue to explore its markets and we are still in the period of extensive growth yet.

RT: Your company is planning an IPO. Where and when are expecting to carry that out and how much are you looking to raise?

E.C.: First of all, we want to finish building our company to achieve better results, so that we could carry out IPO more effectively and gain more money as well.

RT: You’ve built your business from scratch. You are a true entrepreneur. And now you’ve announced plans to diversify your business. What other sectors are you looking at?

E.C.: As far as diversification is concerned, the most interesting project is the establishing of the retail bank. Russia is becoming more and more reliable and bank loans in Russia are becoming more available. One of the reasons, why we decided to postpone IPO is that we decided to get a credit. Now we are planning to set up a new bank and thus will provide banking services in our shops.

RT: Your personality, your style and your look is very different from some of the key businessmen we’ve been seeing at this particular forum. Is this a branding effort on your part, a demonstration of the way you want your company to progress in the future?

E.C.: Well, there is no dress code here. I would like to thank organisers of the forum for that. There are no limits here and that is good. You just wear what you want to wear. Besides, yellow is our company’s main color so we are taking every opportunity to advertise our company.

RT: How would you estimate the results of the forum? Has this year’s forum achieved its main goals?

E.C.: Well, this is one of the best forums I’ve been. And this is also the best business event in Russia recently. This is much better than everything we had in the past. Many good deals have been signed here. This is a kind of catalyst of a business process in Russia. On a 1-5 scale I would give a 5+ to the forum.